JPEGMAFIA, rap’s most tireless agitator, looks inward [Video]

In January, the rapper and producer JPEGMAFIA ignited some frustrated chatter online when a photo of him and Kanye West, hinting at a collaboration, appeared on his Instagram. JPEG had long been vocal about how much he revered Kanye, and the role that the G.O.O.D. Music architect had played in his musical education. But given the widespread dismay at his hero’s anti-semitic antics (“Kanye’s a Nazi now,” JPEG himself lamented in an interview just last year), the backlash was predictable and immediate. The artist fired back, justifying his participation in what would become Vultures 1, Ye’s first tag-team album with Ty Dolla $ign, as apolitical: a long-awaited call up to the majors by his favorite rapper ever, their connection nothing more than a fated bucket list moment. “its offensive to me that some people on here took a moment i had been waiting on my whole life and twisted into some weird ass oppression …